AO: The analysts argued that drawing on the “analytical acumen and existential insights of research subjects to recast the intellectual imperatives of the researcher’s own methodological practices, in short, the para-ethnographic practices of subjects” is key (82).
AO: deferring to subject’s mode of knowing (82) and deferral to appropriation (93)
AO: renegotiation of the rules of engagement with the dialogic, epistemic subject opens the intellectual space for a rethinking of collaboration. (85)
AO: “conceptual work of an altogether different order is going on when the categories that inform the ethnog- rapher’s frame are being appropriated.” (93)
AO: “shared conceptual labor” (97)
AO: Analysts note that “understanding of and sensitivity to cultural differences and their impact on teamwork” is important but it is unclear what kinds of “culture” they mean… Seems to be “traditional idea of culture as tied to nation and ethnicity (S245).
AO: Early efforts by IDRC learned that linking and sharing information did not necessarily translate into collaboration and synthesis (3). Analyses found the “importance of participation, context-specific structures, committed donor support, and leadership. While the networks were successful at linking individuals, and moving toward collaborative research, there were questions about sustainability, capacity require- ments, and higher costs (Willard and Creech 2006). Furthermore, it became evident that linking around a common theme or purpose does not automatically lend itself toward the desired outcome of collaboration and synthesis.” (3)
AO: “synthesis is viewed as a process whereby knowledge from a variety of sources is summarised and critically appraised, and was envisioned as including a broad array of activities and research outputs. Synthesis outputs include academic papers, policy briefs, blogs, videos, maps, conference panels, and media articles.” (4)
AO: The analysts describe the importance of (1) responsive funding, (2) the use and facilitation of collaborative spaces, (3) pro- grammatic leadership, and (4) being strategic in order to strengthen the enabling environment for collaboration and synthesis.
AO: The analysts hold that “Being strategic, and clearly communicating that vision, ensures that individuals involved are aware of why the topic and audience have been selected and the intended purpose” is very important as well as “critically reflecting about potential collaborative synthesis, rather than pursuing it as a good in and of itself.”
AO: The analysts mention the importance of strengthening the way that collaborative spaces are facilitated, and enlivening spaces where individuals are better able to interact, know one another identify mutual interests and then develop collaborative projects. (9).
AO: The analysts describe the process of community peer review as: “hiring a community member to the team; researching the social, cultural, and economic contexts of the community; identify the community; ensure skills for community conversation are in place; call the community meeting; conduct the community meeting; and analyze feedback for consent and refusal as important steps in the method of community peer review” (which I would argue is collaborative).
AO: The analysts note that “obtaining community-level consent requires paying attention to the subtle ways in which research practices are consented to or refused simultaneously and unevenly.” (5)
AO: The analysts argue that “refusal” allows “researchers to work together with community members to ensure academic interests are in line with community concerns.” (7) This is interesting as it raises the questions of interests and whose interests are represented (and how they are discussed and negotiated).
AO: The analysts note the importance of skills in facilitation, ethnographic field methods, and consensus - oriented decision making (11)
AO: “By directing our research so that it is more relevant to local needs and is responsive to existing power relations, community peer review offers similar gains to academic peer review.” (25)
AO: “Deciding on rules of engagement or drawing up memoranda of understanding is a critical process in research collaboration, and one that may need to be revisited and renegotiated over time” (151)
AO: The analysts argue for deliberation – for individuals and groups to develop an ability to express and confront overarching conditions and contradictions, to negotiate agreements about direction and purpose, to seek allies and identify obstacles, and to be open to disagreement and failure. Such debate has no easy solutions but encompasses multiple perspectives.
AO: The analysts note that the presence of a convener facilitates the formation of an alliance.
AO: The analysts note that there must be an arrival at a shared understanding of the problem domain and every stakeholders’ place within it. Stakeholders should have some self-interest in having access to the commons.
AO: Analysts do not note specific practices but they call for “strengthening of respectful collaborative spaces for scholarship to flourish in a way that is truly concerned with diversity.”
AO: The analyst calls into question the viability of and the kind of ethnographic knowledge that a “detached researcher” who enters the field and pretends not to define their positionality in the field has. As such, she would argue that working with contemporary indigenous communities, anthropologists must position themselves in regards to issues and reframe their relationship with indigenous actors. Analyst holds that collaborative practices can question colonialist tropes (other; insider/outsider; first world/third world) by focusing on the conditions and contexts in which indigeneity becomes either a justification for violating human rights in the name of progress or for resisting such abuses.
AO: The analyst hlds that anthropology can challenge assumptions of ‘feel-goodness’ in collaborative methodologies on the one hand, and by producing critical knowledge that is skeptical of easy rendering of political engagements and solidarity (108)
AO: Analysts note that in crossdisciplinary collaborations, individuals experience their alterity and both sides’ work is defamiliarized and out of that emerges a need for the construction of roles and responsibilities that allow skill sets to be admitted to a working team. These are often forgotten or left unarticulated (11).
AO: Analysts note that they suggest an approach towards defining “the precise role of dissent within a collaborative ecology” [Flanders 2012, 70] and hold that “by increasing the understanding of what each discipline offers to the collaboration through rather than despite its difference, otherness becomes a tool for potentially overcoming technical, theoretical, and/or creative problems.” (17)
AO: Analysts call for 1) recognition that no collaborator can ever be neutral, and 2) that their roles must be understood as well as possible, before, during, and after the event. Credit and blame need to be attributed, expressed, and shared.”
AO: Shared commitments, intellectual, ideological and political convictions and assumptions (in this case, commitment to lucid writing; significance between popular and “high” culture, respect for the cultural world outside the academy) (548)
AO: Meeting at least once in person.
AO: They note that these things made them “collaborate” better: sitting together in front of computer and writing; stimulate each other with ideas and hints in letters; diary letter writing every other week; read the same books at the same time and exchange different but complementary responses; delaying time together until “ready to explode or implode with new words, new ideas.”